A Restricted Country

by Joan Nestle, Tatjana Greif (translator), Suzana Tratnik (translator)

A proud working class woman, an "out" lesbian long before the Rainbow revolution, Joan Nestle has stood at the forefront of American freedom struggles from the McCarthy era to the present day. Available for the first time in years, this revised classic collection of personal essays offers an intimate account of the lesbian, feminist, and civil rights movements.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT, Feminism, Essays, History, Lesbian

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Joan Nestle writes and edits essays, erotic fiction, poetry, and short stories. She is an activist, and among many actions has co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives to preserve records of lesbian lives and communities and currently coordinates the Women in Black protests against Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

in college, in the late 80s and early 90s, i discovered that i had two aunts. this is one (and this is another). aunt Joan was kind, amiable, flirty, sweet-tempered, clear-eyed. she was filled with gentle strength; her spirit glowed. a generous aunt, one who loved the world around her and who shared that love with me. she loved women, she loved life. she told me stories of that life and those stories were filled with poetry and passion. she told me about her jewish identity; she told me what it felt like to be a lesbian. she told me about the birds and the bees and how to be a person and how sexuality and identity can be of my own making, can be many things. she showed me how to make my own world, to invite others into it, to connect my world with other worlds; she showed me how to make myself my self. she challenged me to move past the restrictions, the fences and barriers, that this mundane world will try to put around me. she laughed and she sang and she widened my spirit. i fucking love you, Joan Nestle! such a guiding influence.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in the Reagan & feminist sex wars era, this collection of essays is an essential piece of queer, feminist, femme, and butch/femme history & lineage. Included here are stories of working class 50s dyke bar culture, early involvement in Movement work including the march from Selma to Montgomery, tracings of the relationships between Joan Nestle’s femmeness & her mother who liked to fuck, an explicit but brief history of how lesbians & sex workers have always shared community & struggle, and coalition/solidarity politics between lesbian feminism’s most hated women: sex workers--butch/femme dykes--leatherwomen, aaand a fair few erotica stories including a femme4femme one that I especially appreciated as a longtime butch/femme femme who’s constantly deepening her femme4femme love & life.

[T’Layne Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very much a book of its time, particularly in terms of Trans people - there aren’t any. All diversity of gender, in people assigned female at birth, seem to be attributed to gender expression, being butch, or hiding a lesbian relationship by passing as a straight couple. No apparent consideration that any of this diverse representation may have included Trans men. There are also mentions of attending the Michigan Women’s Festival, but no mention of the controversy about excluding Trans women.
In addition, the discussions of the birth of lesbian feminism seem to be largely about white feminism, but that distinction doesn’t seem to be clear.
However, having said all that, I was fascinated and challenged by these essays. I really appreciated having this insight into the life of a fierce and vulnerable Queer, cis, Jewish, white, sexual, lesbian activist, who came of age in 1950s America. Nestle shares autobiographical stories about growing up as a Jewish child of a single mother in the McCarthy era, and goes on to her time in the civil rights movement. Nestle then writes about living as a sexual queer woman. About being sexual. About being a writer, and about being an activist.
I sincerely hope that this curious and thoughtful mind continued to challenge herself, and broaden her understanding of the world. I was intrigued by this insight into a little bit of what queer life was like in mid 20th century USA. Recommended.

[moriah · Rating 5 out of 5]

joan taught me so much in these essays. borrowed this from my school’s library but need to buy a copy to keep and hold close to me. butch/femme love 4ever and ever <3

“She put out the light and turned towards me. I leaned into her, fearing her knowledge, her toughness—and then I realized her hands were trembling.
Through my blouse, I could feel her hands like butterflies shaking with respect and need. Younger lovers had been harder, more toughened to the joy of touch, but my passing woman trembled with her gentleness.”

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wonderful. Inspiring, heartbreaking, poignant, truthful-an absolute revelation. From the first story, I was hooked. Thank fuck for Joan Nestle. This book gives me hope. One to revisit. Recommended!

[Ren Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This book was so beautiful. I first heard of Joan Nestle in a queer studies class I took. This book was SO hard to find. I had to resort to unorthodox methods in order to obtain it.... But i'm so grateful I did so. I think the curation of this book is very interesting and well done. It's a collection of essays, a few poems and speeches but it flows in a very organised manner and creates a linear story. This book reminded me so much of Stone Butch Blues but I feel Nestle is not discussed nearly as much in queer history. It almost feels like that book couldn't of happened without this one. It's kind of a femme counterpart to SBB. There were some chapters that were so beautiful and still so relevant to today's issues. She blended her intersections so well and actively discussed her involvement in movements outside her own. The chapter on butch/femme relations was PERFECT and I need every single annoying bisexual on twitter to read it immediately because why are we still having these discourses when this perfect piece of text exists. I did find her connections between sex work and lesbianism very very interesting, it gave insight to a different lense in how the two are tied together. I really recommend this book to anyone and even more so to look into Joan Nestle and all the work she has done for lesbians. She is also still living and supports Palestine so big yup for me. Overall amazing lesbian text that needs to be more talked about in the historiography of queer history <3

[Madeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Coalition politics is a desperately needed, deeply political strategy in these Reagan times… Politics becomes passion, or perhaps passion becomes politics. One of the strongest gifts you give this hate-filled society is proof that neither racism nor classism nor homophobia can silence a loving voice, nor stop a loving touch.”

[neens · Rating 5 out of 5]

completely blew my mind several times esp joan's sexual/sensual pieces about butch-femme dynamics

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It is one I will keep, refer back to, read again, and lend to people. I had never read any of Joan Nestle's writing before. Now I plan to look up her other work and would like to read it all. I truly enjoyed this book. Although it is history, it reads like a novel. It consists of short essays and stories that deal with her life, politics, her experience living as a working class, Jewish, lesbian, feminist woman. She deals with so many important ideas and issues including the intersectionality of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion... I am especially fascinated with her analysis of the tensions between feminists and lesbians, the policing of morality, censorship, how history is written, who writes it, and who is left out, and the connections between women, lesbians, and sex workers.

[Sarah Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This important book from lesbian HERstory details the author's experience of coming out in the 1940s and then being out in the 1950s and onward. The book is a collection of essays and short stories, all arranged chronologically. Of course, Joan Nestle was instrumental in starting the Lesbian HERstory Archives in Brooklyn, so this slim book felt like a particularly good find in the library shelves. Every lesbian searching for a sense of her history and community should read Nestle's account of her experiences. While she's a far superior essayist/memoirist than she is a short story writer, all these vignettes are important glimpses into American lesbian culture.

[Emmanuelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have nothing but gratitude.

[Riley Saturniidae · Rating 4 out of 5]

there's a tendency for younger queer people to look down on the older generations, but many of them were trailblazers who struggled with the same issues that plague our movements today. this disdain would be better reserved for specific segments of the movement - for example the Respectable Gays whose idea of liberation was to fight for homophobic crumbs while shamelessly pushing other kinds of queer people further into the margins - rather than entire generations of our elders. their terms may seem 'outdated' to us, but the same will be said when the words we used to define our lives fall out of favor with the newer generations. this touches on one of the biggest themes in the book: reclaiming queer/gay/lesbian history, not just to give context to our lives as queer people but to pass down the lessons we've learned and maybe finally stop repeating our mistakes. many of the issues that joan nestle worked hard to eradicate since she came out in the 50s unfortunately still plague our movements today, which makes sharing this book and writings like it all the more important. there is a quote in the book where she says that a world made safer for queer women and women sex workers is a world that will be made safer for all women. . she understood that centering the needs, voices, and stories of the most marginalized members of society was the path to achieving true liberation for all. she talks a lot about growing up with a working class mom and then living herself as a working class woman, both of which played a central role in forming her immovable solidarity with and respect for all kinds of working women. there are a few times when joan nestle references trans people, but i found myself wondering if this solidarity extended to her trans/non-binary/gnc siblings as well. not so much because of things she said, but because trans/non-binary/gnc people seemed rather absent in a book about reclaiming queer history, a history that is indebted to trans people and would not be the same without us. when reading about some of the 'passing women' in her writings, i wanted to know so much more about them. and i couldn't help but think about the many trans/non-binary/gnc people who lived one way only to have their stories told another way. i don't think joan herself was erasing the stories of these people, but these stories made me think about language, too, and how the way it changes over time can both help and hinder our attempts to write and understand history. these thoughts give way to interesting questions about history, who gets to write it, and who should be writing. and i had similar feelings/concerns about the gay and lesbian people of color in her writings, which leads me to my next point: i disagreed with joan's stance that all queer people are colonized people, but overall i really liked the book and will definitely read it again.

[Shoshanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read, I put it up there in the same category as "Whipping Girl" by Julia Serano! A woman, a socialist, a feminist, a lesbian, a femme, a Jew, Nestle shows how these identities intersect in her life and in the lives and histories of others. This book is a series of entries, most of which are personal essays, some histories, and later on in the book, some very intense blushy lesbian erotica (it's so good but don't read it around other people! ;) ).

The way Nestle talks about the different ways her Jewishness and her lesbianism are similarly experienced, it's the first time I have read about this, outside of the watching Transparent. Her defense of butch / femme relationships in lesbian culture, past and present, are so thought provoking. I had never thought of how the androgyny that lesbian feminists advocated erased that part of the culture before.

Also the way she talks about being despised on multiple sides, as a femme lesbian, remind me of Serano's triple oppression from different groups.

Not to be missed! A feminist gem! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Joan Nestle is an excellent essayist and I've really enjoyed this collection. Writing about desire and eroticism is a difficult thing to do, and I think that Nestle does an excellent job of addressing such a touchy subject in a way that is clear and understandable but is also rich with feeling and thought and passion.
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Favorite essays (for my reference):
Liberties not Taken
Esther's Story
Lesbian Memories 1: Riis Park, 1960
Stone Butch, Baby Butch, Drag Butch
Voices From Lesbian Herstory
My History With Censorship

[Kieren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this text. It made me want to visit the Lesbian Herstory Archives in NY.

Quote, "History is not a dead thing or a sure thing. It lives with our choices and our dreams... It is always a collective memory as complicated and as contradictory as the people who lived it, but it is always a people's story."

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really a good one. It covers so much ground so well, from the stories of the 1950s bars to her complicated mother to the erotica she writes in the second half. It all fits together so clearly, too. Really a great introductory volume of queer history, to so clearly capture so many different moments and the way they rub against each other.

[Soph Nova · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully layered collection that holds many secrets and joys despite its short length; moving from comparative history to erotica to eulogy is not easy, but Nestle does that and more here.

“All I have are my words and my body, and I will use them to say and picture the truths I know.”

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I dipped in and out of this book, but I know I’m going to go back to all of it because it’s so dense. A mixture of essays and erotica, this gets 5 Stars simply because it’s such a fundamentally important part of lesbian/queer history.

[Annika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely insightful read about Nestle's experiences as a Lesbian, a femme, a Civil Rights activist, a feminist, a Jewish woman, and all the intersections therein. I found many of the essays to still be relevant today, re: McCarthyism and scapegoating within "undesirable" communities.

[TK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jewish Stone Butch Blues. Required reading for Jewish lesbians.

[M Caesar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly incredible!! The more things change the more they stay the same, kind of sobering to see how many problems from the 50s and 80s we're still dealing with, or that made a resurgence.

[Sara G · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Lesbians and Prostitutes: an Historical Sisterhood" was certainly *the* standout for me but this book overall feels very valuable and personal, still. Even in 2024.

[groundbreakingdot872 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly moving. A must read for the modern queer empowerment movement that will always remain timeless.

[Jay Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both a memoir and a historical archive of queer culture.

[E.J. Frost · Rating 4 out of 5]

"To live without history is to live like an infant, constantly amazed and challenged by a strange and unnamed world. There is a deep wonder in this kind of existence, a vitality of curiosity and a sense of adventure that we do well to keep alive all of our lives. But a people who are struggling against a world that has decreed them obscene need a stronger bedrock beneath their feet. (110)"

Absolutely.

[Stephy · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I recall correctly, the author was involved many decades ago in a lesbian newspaper collective called Lavander Woman. My, she has come a long way. Some of the women from Lavender Woman Collective have gone on to write incredible works of Woman's Studies. See Bonnie Zimmerman, Michal Brody, others. I love her work.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally I was able to find it at Pegasus books in Berkeley. I had a FEELING it would be waiting for me there, and I was right. SO GOOD that while I was reading I accidentally got on the wrong flight back to New York-- had to be brought back by a fast-moving attendant who raced down the airplane sleeve after me. Restricted Country, indeed.

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very important book. A seamless collection of essays, written with such fierce passion, such hope in the worst of it. Nestle is an important woman, who speaks for those perhaps most harshly judged & over looked, in a way that they have not been spoken for before. A powerful collection you should not miss.

[Emmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Joan Nestle, one of the founders of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in NYC. I have always envied people with a consuming passion in their lives, and hers is fighting for the preservation and recognition of lesbian herstory.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joan Nestle is one of the most important lesbian figures and activists of the late 20th century. She claimed the right to be a lesbian and femme at a time when that was much more controversial as today.
This book is a collection of her autobiographical writings, in a quite unusual form.